Declined Ascensions
by Bitter Inferno
Summary: A group piece by Sparkles, ToT, and Stage. It was a dark and stormy night when 8 of the newsies have strange dreams about sprouting wings. But when they find evidence of the heavenly parts, how can they be sure what is a dream and what is reality?
1. Different

**Disclaimer:** We do not own the newsies!  Go us!

**Opening Comments: **The result of us bein' deep—always scary.  But very cool.

**Title:** Declined Ascensions

**Author:** Bitter Inferno****

****

White.  That was all he saw.  A distant flutter was coming to his ears but he saw nothing that made that noise.  It was as though he was blinded by the white.  He stretched his arms forward, fingers searching for cloth, flesh, a wall…_anything_ to show that he wasn't alone.

But there was nothing.

****

Black. Darkness, fear, pain, panic… That's all that he'd known ever since he could recall.  His subconscience floated in an endless stream of tar.  His breath was already coming raggedly as the memories flooded through his brain.  He opened his mouth to scream out for mercy, for the pain to leave him, for it to stop…but it never did.

And he was met with silence.

****

Noise.  Noise everywhere.  It surrounded, filling his ears with the screams of doomed souls.  He tried to block it out; to push it out.  When he ran, it followed.  When he hid, it found him.  When he slept, it tortured him.  There was no escape.

As soon as it stopped, it began.  There was no relief.

****

Soft.  Quiet, rustling, peace.  Eerie peace.  He was shrouded in it; a comforting embrace.  Nothing seemed like it could go wrong and yet, something gnawed at his stomach.  His conscious screamed at him through the muffled folds.  He strived to listen, to make sense of the dampened shrieks.

Yet there was peace.

****

Sketchy.  Lines that could destroy as easily as they could create.  Lines forming intricate patterns and designs; never showing what was to be or what had been.  Detached and unconnected, like himself.  The lines reflected the incompleteness of what lay within.  Imperfect harmony of his psyche.

A full picture of nothing.

****

Genuine.  Genuine is what they said he was.  But how could he be genuine when he was such a fraud?  Lies were only a hitchhiked ride through life; an easy way out that only gained you everything and nothing together.  Hand in hand they went.  It was human nature to lie; truth took more audacity to accomplish.

Audacity that he didn't have.

****

Delicate.  Trusting…maybe too trusting?  All it shifted into was the manipulation of his being.  Being distorted into a shape that he didn't want to be.  He didn't have a choice.  He was pulled in.  Pulled in so deep that he couldn't escape.  Maybe there never was escape for him.  Perhaps he was doomed to be a minion…forever a follower of the man who called himself his "friend".

Taken for granted.

****

Elaborate.  A transparent gem and at the same time; it was opaque.  Its many facets twisting and shaping the light that tried to see through him.  Bending conventional radiance into separate beams.  Beams bearing resemblance of those who needed salvation.  He wanted to help them all; but only reached one at a time.  The damned, the suffering, the incorrigible.

To a sinner, he was a saint.  To a saint, he was a sinner.

An unforeseen searing pain blasted in his shoulder blades.  He staggered, blinded by agony and mystification.  His fingers twisted in his hair, trying to block out the first pain with another.  The screams that ripped from his throat fell upon deaf ears.

He fell to his knees in a dizzying state.  The world whirled around him, leaving him gasping for air.  He wished it would all stop.

And then it did.  Slowly, the pain subsided and a celestial peal warbled through the deathly silence.  He rose to his feet, staggering under an unnatural weight that rested on his back.  He looked over his shoulder and gazed upon with awe as the crystalline wings unfurled around him.

****

**Closing Comments:** o.o Wow.  Didn't think we could write like that, huh?  Bwaha.  ^_^ Review us?


	2. Together

**Shout Outs~**

**Vinyl:** Sorry 'bout the delayed update.

**Bon Bon:** XD Thanks.

**Punch: **::shrugs:: You'll figure it out later…if not, we can post it at the end.

**Skitch:** ^^;;;;;

****

He was rising.  He felt himself rising upwards, through feathery-light tickles on his face and cheeks.  He tried not hard to giggle at the soaring feeling it left in his stomach.  He opened his eyes to white.  Nothing but white again.  He began to panic; not wanting to be alone.  His cries were cut short, however, when the whiteness pulled back and he saw six other of his fellow newsies.

"Dutchy!" He cried out to the nearest to him.  Dutchy looked up at the dark face appearing from out of a shield of white.  

"Ehy, Boots." Dutchy greeted him softly.  Boots gaped at the extra limbs that Dutchy had gained in the form of silver wings.  "Youse got 'em too."

Boots swiveled his head back around to look for himself.  Sure enough, pure white wings had sprouted from his shoulder blades.  They flapped gracefully as they held Boots suspended above the clouds that looked off-white in comparison to his feathered wings.  He grinned and laughed with delight.

Boots' bliss was cut short when a blood-curdling scream shattered the happy atmosphere.  He gulped and peered down through the clouds, not sure if he wanted to see from where such an inhuman sound had come.  A moment later, Skittery joined them in the firmament.

Skittery looked as though he had just been to hell and back.  His face was creased in pain and he hung limply from his wings.  His wings.  They were a dull gray color.  Boots recognized it as lead and gasped when he saw the trails of blood running from the base of the new limbs.

"Skittery!  Come up heah!" Dutchy called down to his friend.

"I can't." He said in a barely audible tone.

"Yes, you can.  Just try."

"I did.  I can't.  This is as far as I can go."

"Then we'll go down to you."

"We can't." Specs spoke up.  He had been deep in thought the entire time, his crystal wings holding him aloft.  "We can't go down to him."

"Of course we can!" Blink insisted.  "What makes you say that we can't?  What do you know?  _How_ do you know?"

"I don't know.  I just…_know_.  We can't get down to Skittery…he's on his own level.  He has to get up here himself.  And you'd better hurry or those wings will start slowly poisoning you." Specs replied.

"It ain't worth it." Skittery sighed heavily.  "I don't have a purpose.  What's the point?"

"Skit!" Mush exclaimed; his velvet wings seemed to shimmer with tears of their own.  "You gotta try!"

"What for?"

A burst of light drew the others' attention to where Spot was hovering on wings of fire.  Currently, they were blazing with what seemed to reflect his rage.  "You've obviously got some purpose, otherwise you wouldn't be here!"

"What good are lead wings?"

"You have to find that out for yourself." Specs cut in again.

"But why are we here?" Bumblits spoke up for the first time.  His ebony wings waved; seeing only intervals of the steady motion.  The sketchy lines were impossible to follow.  "What do these wings symbolize?"

"Got me." Blink said, looking over his shoulder at his own gold wings.  

**_BOOM!_**

Boots' eyes flew open and he stared at the bunk beneath him, breathing rapidly.  A glance around the room confirmed that no one else had awakened.  The only thing breaking the silence—besides his own breathing—was the rain slapping against the window panes.  Boots turned over, trying to gain some sleep. 


	3. Morning After

**Shout Outs~**

**Kat:** _::toils::_

**Vinyl:** ^^ Thaaaaaaaaank yoooooou

****

The storm had not ceased the next morning…in fact, it was ten times worse.  The newsies were trapped in the Lodging House for the day, Kloppman not allowing anyone to brave the storm.  As a result, everyone was allowed to sleep in.

Dutchy strolled into the bathroom considerably late, covering a yawn with his hand.  Bumblits was at a sink, washing his face and hands.  He didn't look up as Dutchy entered, wiping his face with a towel.  Dutchy did a double-take.

"Ehy, Bum!  What did ya do ta your shirt?" He asked.

"What?" Bumblits asked, looking down at the front.

"Naw, turn around.  Look, there's two of 'em." Dutchy's eyebrows knit together as he looked at the two rips.  "Its like you ripped them on something.  Ya even got it perfectly matched."

"Dutchy!  What did you do to your shirt?!" Mush demanded.  Dutchy craned his neck over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows when he found identical rips on his back.

"I didn't do anything to it!"

"Big slashes in one's shirt do not just appear."

"Ehy," Dutchy said, going in a circle to try and see his shirt better.  "This is kinda like that messed up dream I had last night.  We all had wings.  Mush, yours were…velvet or sumthin'.  And Bumblits had black ones."

"Ebony." Bumblits mumbled. 

"You had the same dream!"

"I'm not sure if it was really a dream…" Mush told him.

"It wasn't." Specs confirmed, walking in to join them.

"Aw, you're kiddin' me!" Dutchy threw up his hands.

"Why don't ya'll just shut up so early in the mornin'?" Skittery grumbled, shuffling into the bathroom.  He walked past them to a sink and bent over it.  

"SKIT!"

Skittery jumped and whirled around to glare at Bumblits.  "What?!"

"Your…your back!"

"What about me back?" Skittery frowned, looking over his shoulder.  He turned so that he could see it by way of the mirror and his eyes grew to saucers.  Not only was his shirt ripped, but there were fresh slashes running over his shoulder blades.  "Aw, shit."

The others were so busy staring at Skittery's back that they didn't even notice Jack enter the bathroom.  He looked over to Skittery and then back to the others.  Jack then crossed the room to Skittery.

"What did ya do, Skit?" He asked. 

"I, uh…I fell."

"Interesting fall marks." Jack commented, slowly.  "It looks as though you almost…." He met Skittery's gaze for the last bit of the sentence.  "…sprouted wings."

"Haha!" Mush laughed.  "Did ya hear that, fellas?  Jackie-boy's lost his marbles!  'Sproutin' wings'!  Where d'you get this stuff?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Jack.  'Course I didn't sprout wings." Skittery smiled weakly.

"Morning!" Boots said cheerily as he walked in.  He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Jack.  Jack turned and smiled at Boots.  He started towards the younger newsie.

"Good mornin', Boots.  How's it goin'?" Jack asked, reaching out to put a hand on Boots' shoulder.  Boots jerked backwards and fixed Jack with a look as though he was a starved cat and Boots was some sort of mouse.

"Boots?  What's wrong?" Jack asked.

"N-nuthin'.  I got stuff ta do…in Brooklyn.  I'll see ya guys later." Boots turned and fled from the bathroom.  He nearly bumped into Blink along the way who looked after him with a puzzled expression.

"Ain't we stuck in here?" Blink asked.

"That's what I thought…but apparently, it doesn't stop Boots." Dutchy chuckled.

"Damn, Skit!  What'd you do to your back?!"

"Fell." Skittery replied without hesitation.  

"Whatever you fell on musta've had a mind of its own."

There was a long and awkward silence in which the newsies in the bathroom looked at each other, expecting answers.  Jack eventually cleared his throat.

"Specs, can I talk to you?"

"Sure." Specs shrugged.

"I mean in private." 

"Oh…uh…" Specs looked at the others.  With a tad hesitation, they shuffled out of the bathroom.  Specs turned back to Jack and jumped a little at the freaky expression on his face.  "…Jack?"

"Hidin' sumthin', Specs?"

"Why would I hide anythin'?"

"Been havin' any weird dreams lately?"

"No.  Why do you ask?"

"You're lyin' ta me."

"No, I ain't."

"What about your little 'wing problem'?"

"What wing problem?"

"Hm, I don't know.  Maybe this one?" Jack sneered, shoving Specs against the bathroom wall.  Specs opened his eyes cautiously and then all the way when he felt the sensation in his shoulder blades.

"Shit!  No!" He hissed, struggling against his captor.

"No wing problem, eh?" Jack smirked when the wings became visible to him.  Specs gritted his teeth against the pain.  "Good.  I guessed the right one."

****

"Aah!" Skittery yelled, doubling over.  

"Skit?  What's—" Blink trailed off as he saw the lead wings emerge.  "Oh, that ain't good…"

"Ack!" Dutchy jumped off the broken bunk he was sitting on.  "I's gonna get stuck!"

"How do ya _control_ dese t'ings?!" Bumblits demanded looking annoyed as his, too, unfurled.  "Dey got a mind of deir own!"

"It's a good t'ing we's up heah where nobody can see us." Mush commented.  He sat cross-legged on the floor, wrapping his arms around himself like a warm blanket.  "Dese t'ings are useful too, ya'know."

"Oh no." Skittery groaned.

" 'Oh no', what?" Blink asked.

"If dis is happenin' ta us…what 'bout Spot?"

A deadly silence fell over the room.  Well, until Boots broke it.  "He'll light da whole place on foire!"

"One of us bettah go." Dutchy nodded.

"Me." Skittery gasped, staggering to his feet.  But Bumblits stopped him and held him by the shoulders.  "Get outta me way, Bumblits!"

"Youse in no shape ta go."

"I's goin' anyways!"

"No, ya ain't!"

"I's da only one who wont be blown away by da winds!  Da rest of youse is too light.  You'll get thrown down da street." Skittery growled, throwing off Bumblits' arms.  "Open da window and get outta me way!"

"Skit…" Dutchy began.

"I's goin'!"

"Alright, alright.  Just be careful, would ya?" 

****


End file.
